What is your love message?…

Hey, I saw this in my blogger dashboard, and thought it deserved a post.

I checked out the blog itself and read this moving story of this guy George and his love Gina and I got a little annoyed that I can never match the words he used. It got me thinking that I should contribute to the project – not so much as to change people’s (or a certain person’s) impressions of me, but that the main reason I blog is from the theraputic release from venting my anger/frustration or celebrating something I have found to be very ace, or jotting down a few life events cos noone has bothered to ask in a few days.

Here’s starting on my love message…

Rhythms of the World, come forth! (backdated 23/07/07)

Hey, overdue post here, last weekend I was invited by my good friend Will to the Rhythms of the World festival in his own backyard, Hitchin.  Now due to the way the trains work, if I was to solo the trip, it would mean travelling into the centre of London, going via the Underground to another hub in London, and then back out and northwards to Hitchin.  Will offered to pick me up (and drop me off) at Milton Keynes Central, one of the main stops towards London.  This was very advantageous as it cut the journey effectively in half so I was all in favour.  The festival fell on the weekend of the 14th July, so the (revised) plan was to head down on Saturday morn and return back on the Monday, just before Will went off to work.

Trains were fine, and after a bit of traffic getting out of Milton Keynes, Will getting slightly annoyed at the sheer volume of the number of roundabouts, we were on our way to the festival and the alcoholic oblivion beyond :D.  Will stressed getting the earlier train to allow for more drinking, and well we arrived in Hitchin with about half an hour before the festival officially started LOL.  We went via his sister’s flat, currently unoccupied, to fill up cooler bags with beverages and then we were on our way.

First stop was off to see a band on one of the main stages that was promised to be in the same mould as Enter Shakiri.  Unfortunately that was not so, the band that actually turned up produced nothing greater than watered-down 3 minute emo songs.  A promised highlight (thanks Will) was their completely unexperimental cover of the dance hit “Castles in the Sky”, which when the rest of the band kicked in created nothing more than shapeless noise – nice one guys, you were so good, I can’t even remember the name of your band.

Next stop was the other main stage for the Chris Phillips Band which many held in high regard, the band forming after the split of former local band Ardent Kicks, and Tom, one of Will’s mates, was brother to the Chris from which the band drew their name.  By this time a bit of a crowd was forming, and front man Chris milked it for all it was worth, and the set was genuinely enjoyable – their stuff being quite folksy thanks to Chris’ acoustic, but also some electronic and synth elements included to deepen the sound.  One for the future here hopes, the guys were extremely good, very tight - Dan the drummer is held in exceptionally high regard for his skills although the set didn’t allow the freedom for him to show off, plus speaking with Chris later that night was pretty cool, a stand up guy – I wish you guys the best.  As I mentioned to Chris in the little chat I had with him, the band coped very well the technical difficulties that struck Dan’s kit a couple of times throughout the set.  Rather than feigning excuses and mass shrugging, it was inspiring to see Chris take the initiative, and get the crowd involved.  That involved the classic sing-along and clapping with the instruments dropped out.  Another bit of fun was the Mexican wave that was sent back through the crowd which actually made it back to the front a couple of times, which was quite smart.

With the early highlight of the day already over, it seemed appropriate to take a breath (and get more beer) so we headed over to the acoustic stage to chill out (if memory serves me correctly, it gets a bit hazy from here on in, thanks to the copious amounts of alcohol that we were drinking).  The absolute name escapes me but next highlight was an Orchestra that did classical covers of modern songs – it couldn’t fail to be entertaining so we all set about being there.  Some food later and we headed back to the first main stage in what was already an impressive crowd but the sound seemed screwed up.  There didn’t seem to be any amplification going on, so it was very hard to hear them over the general hubbub of the crowd.  It was a shame as they promised to be very good, so we took our leave -  I can’t remember if we went back to the acoustic stage or perhaps even the George for the first time.

Next performance we couldn’t miss was the Easy Star All Stars (I think that’s what they were called, where is my programme?..), and we didn’t miss them.  This goup were responsible for remixing popular albums like Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and Radiohead’s OK Computer in a reggae inspired fashion.  Properly liquored up the crowd were really starting to enjoy it, lots of people dancing, our substantial group as well and even I showed off some of my moves towards the end.

It was after those guys that I met one of the Irish girls (I want to say her name was Fiona oh dear :s), and in my merriness I got her to say lots of things, practically anything that came into my head, starting with all the cliches like “Top of the morning to ya laddie!”  I’m afraid I got quite smitten pretty quickly, and that is quite worrying that I can get like that after such a short space of time. It actually got me thinking about certain voices, or perhaps accents can, just on their own, be very hot.  I actually thought of Koel, particularly one of the times when I went up to Cov to see everyone and she left this incredibly long answer phone message, but it was cool to listen to her voice a couple of times hehe.  Anyways, back to the festival…

Later on in the day, we were back in the George (I’m pretty sure) for the performance of another person that Tom plus others knew (it seemed Tom knew the majority of Hitchin) and his band at the back of the beer garden.  They were fine without being particularly exciting but it was at this point that I discovered that, upon reflection, quite naturally, that they had a Ceilidh (look up spelling) on in the town hall.  I tried to persuade at least one person including this girl I’ve never met, who it turned out to be the girlfriend of the guy whose band we were watching LOL.  A little disappointed that noone would join me for a ceilidh, I decided to go check it out on my own, and hoped that I would find another odd person over who would be my partner (for those not in the know, Ceilidh’s are dances that generally operate in groups of 2 or 4).  Hanging about on the fringes didn’t seem to help much, and I didn’t feel bold enough to ask a stranger to dance, so after what was a probably short time, I headed back dejected that it didn’t work out *mimes sad expression with fingers on face*.

 

The final act we had to see on day 1 was this very large, latin-inspired percussive act which amongst its lineup had one of Will’s friends, Dave’s dad.  They were also a lot of fun and with that sealing the end of the day, we promptly headed over to the George and the other pubs closeby.  Some more drinks later, and a trip to the loo and I lost people, which was very scary, I was thinking oh crap oh crap oh crap, I actually left this one pub and then joined the queue to get back in just in case I missed some ppl despite me having a big look. Fortunately, Will randomly turned up so it was all good. We went inside the pub and played some fuseball which I lost after taking a promising early lead – shame.

 

We returned back to Will’s pretty knackered and pretty much went straight to bed.  The next day was going to be more of the same, but we chilled for a lot of the waking day playing Call of duty 2 and Forza 2 on Will’s 360.  We went down at about 8 to have the rest of the group attack us for not being more prompt and not getting into town at 12 like they all did.  The pub had a hardcore chiller set up outside cooling some beer cans which could be ours for just a £1 each -bonus! We got some of those and then got into the live drum ‘n’ bass that was on at the end of the beer garden.  Enjoying that as much as it’s physically possible we thought it was best to leave and headed over to Club 85, the “indie stage” but in fact a club – the clue’s in the title.  We were off to the see the last act of the festival, the Eagles I believe was what they were called.  Yeah, they were pretty cool, had essentially a young lineup, with this older guy doing a lot of spoken word which was pretty cool.  They also had a fair few guests come up on stage including a 2nd drummer which Will met at the bar just before, and a woman singer to do a song.  We then met back up with the group to finish off the beer supplies which were a little low on the ground.

 

The next day I only just made the train, the timing being very tight.  It is very strange that I am always tired and/or hungover when making these commutes back to Wem, why is that?  Overall a pretty good weekend, spent a lot of money, and got a bit sunburnt on my neck, but it was a lot of fun.

Here’s pencilling in the weekend for next year.

"It’s only stalking if you work at it…" [Dated 03/05/07]

Hey all, back in the library again and recently I have been really blitzing episodes of the Shield. I am about halfway through season 3 and working through till I reach season 6, the new season whose episodes are being broadcasted now. Even though I remember most of the storylines, it is still an amazing show, really rough and tumble, edgy stuff with a swagger, which I guess dares you not to think it’s cool. I’ve mentioned many times before about the strike team and how like when watching 24, you get pumped up and cheer loudly when they beat down the bad guys, whether it be throwing them over a car, pistolwhipping them, or whatever new method they can come up with the objects around them. As I said, the Strike Team, but Detective Dutch Wagenbach is also very cool, and he is the character in the show I am most like, so he is cool for different reasons.

Anyways, moving on from the Shield, and I think my WoW addiction is over, it’s strange, but I just don’t feel like playing it anymore – I think that’s the problem now that I’ve reached the level cap there is no need to obsess about figues like xp/hour and how to spend talent points etc. As I’ve moaned before, the low population of the realm also means that groups are hard to put together, so that can be very frustrating. I wouldn’t be surprised if my lessening addiction of WoW has been beaten by a new obsession of something, in the whole scheme of life, is pretty much pointless. And that is playing on my 360 and boosting my gamerscore – which doesn’t mean anything, but is just a way of showing other Live players what milestones you’ve hit in the games you’ve played. This has meant me digging up Amped 3 and finally completing the “story” to bag myself lots of points to go towards my gamerscore. Acutally to anyone who hasn’t played the game, I would advise doing so, just for the story itself, and doubling if you have an interest in snowboarding. The best bit of the story is the numerous cut-scenes which detail your progress, and they are ridiculous, often not having anything to do with snowboarding, and pretty much all of them have had me laughing my face off.
So much so was my quest for a better gamerscore, I actually bought the Live Arcade game Uno, and set about maxing out the possible 200 points that are up for grabs. Two weeks later, and I have them all :D

I have to say something about the type of achievements. Many of them involve completing missions through a campaign or story mode the game ha, which is fair enough. Although it’s ok ina few cases, games which have allocated a lot of the points into continued Live play are not so popular in the land of Jonny. Another group of acheivements which are lame and frankly cheap are those that could be classed as attrition acheivements, ones awarded for things like 20hours time playing the game etc. I don’t mind those that you could achieve quite comfortably if you are a fan of the game, and play it quite regularly. The ones that I can’t stand are those which take insane amounts of time and effort on the part of the gamer. I was browsing around the web, looking for lists/articles on the supposed “worst” achievments for 360 games. One I remember was one from this Bomberman game – a game which is univerally accepted as an awful game -and the achievement was for blowing up x amount of bombs or something to that effect. Now, the article in question stated that if you were able to do 1 per second, then it would take over 3 weeks (or similarily ridiculous time, I read this about a week back) non-stop gameplay to complete the achievement – pretty stupid.

Another terrible, not to mention tough, achievement was to rank 1st overall in Live play – now that’s a marathon and simply not attainable for those that are incredibly dedicated to reach that summit. Another similarily annoying achievement was to be online in this Tiger Woods game when there are another 1000 people online. The developers over-estimated the popularity of the game and there was simply never enough people on. This was got round, by people arranging specific times for people to go on Live so people could achieve this one.
Speaking of Live Leaderboards , it may have changed since me submitting the score, but doing this one particular event on Amped 3, my score registered as 8th on the leaderboard :D. Again, Amped 3 is another game that doesn’t have a supremely massive online userbase, with a lot of my scores, coming in as <1000 on the leaderboards. On the note of competitive leaderboards, PGR3 is one of the top ones I reckon. They stage regular tournaments every week or so, and I would love to get the achievement “Tournament Qualifier” but that means being in the top 64 times, and generally my times are usually at least 1000th and above. As this one guy I met in a lobby ages back, he’s waiting till PGR4 comes out, then hopefully all these hardcore amazing gamers will jump onto PGR4 and compete in the tournaments it has in that game – here’s hoping :D

And there couldn’t be a blog entry without mentioning some failing I have with some girl, lol. The last time I saw hot librarian chick was last Thursday, and it got me thinking, it’s no big deal if I just ask her out, but I’d rather not do that in the deafening silence of the library, so I was planning to catch her as she left, which basing on Thursday’s sighting, would be about 1. My reasoning being that she was in the library when I arrived at about half past, but not when I left at about quarter past 1.
So I camped outside the library reading my book, hoping to catch her as she left on the next day, Friday. To quote Dutch from the Shield, “It’s only stalking if you work at it”, so I thought why not actually devote a little time to finding out when she leaves so I can ask her out – that’s not obsessive is it?!!? Coincedentally, that quote is my current MSN screenname, lol.

Unfortunately, she never showed on Friday, and not see her, the following Tuesday or Wednesday (I didn’t work Monday). So here I am, the following Thursday, thinking that she would work this time every week – I walk in so I can head upstairs to write this very blog, and nothing. That makes me sad, but also curious to her exact working hours, I guess they change around, rather annoyingly. Ideally she should work the desk up here in the music section, where I come up to read/blog, as there are less people likely to listen in, but sadly that wish has not happened.
Anyways, I gotta go off to work in a bit, with any luck, she’ll be in tomorrow instead, or knowing my luck, manning the main desk as I leave in a min.

Take it easy.

Concerning Biffy and Becca…. [Dated 18/04/07]

Hey all, the superb Biffy Clyro were playing my old student union on Saturday, so I thought hell yeah! I’m there, good band and a chance to see some of my uni friends again – sorted.

My mate Adam was also coming but he was getting a lift there in a minibus which arrived maybe half an hour before the gig so there was no real time to hang out. I get off the bus and discover that none other than Fran, Becca and Snowy were also on it – some confusion and delight later and we’re ready to head in.

Carter, suprise to me at least, can play guitar and sing, so he was warming up the crowd, his best being the cover of the quite recent dance song, “My heart is pumping for love”, I don’t know the title, whatever, but it brought a smile to my face, so congrats to that. The next band, This City were next, and they seemed like a load of scenesters, not very engaging and I spent most of the time flirting with Becca, more about that later.

The main act, and the reason we were all here, the Biff! We watched them open on Semi-mental from the side, but thanks to the positive mood I was in, and the alcohol coarsing through my veins, I had to get closer, so I threw myself into the pit, and stayed there for the rest of the set. I was listening solely to Biffy on the train down, and it cemented my belief that their early work, Blackened Sky and The Vertigo Of Bliss is their best, but with a new album soon out and the show being a warmup for the Bloc Party tour, it was not suprising that more recent material dominated the set list. They played new songs Asexual meat Kitchen, I’m a fire and new single Saturday Superhouse which despite me not being an immediate fan of the new stuff, I personally feel is a small step back towards the more chaotic stuff on Vertigo of Bliss. From Glitter and Trauma they played Some Kind of Wizard and suprisingly, The Kids from Kibble and the Fist of Light. They kept the hardcore fans happy as well, by playing classic 57 and also Hero Management, which was a suprise also. For their inevitable encore, they played All the Way Down (Ftw!) and Glitter and Trauma so very happy with that.
Biffy don’t say much inbetween songs, a small thank you and a short praise for the support bands, but they just keep to knocking out song after song with a violent energy that is still unrivaled. I’ve seen them quite a few times now, probs not the best I’ve seen them, but it was still a great gig, and was happy I got to see them once more, good to see that they have maintained a high level of consistency for their live shows.

And now onto Becca. My uni friends were all very pleased to see me, as I was them, but I dunno there was something about Becca’s manner, probably coupled with the couple of cans I had previously consumed that got me thinking, “hello, there may be something here”. Now for those that aren’t long prescribers of previous blogs, I can easily confess that I had a crush on Becca last year, around the start of the third term, then she went to germany and then the Koel thing sort of caught on, and we all know where that went. Anyways, back to the story, I reminded her that it has been in fact about a year since I’d seen her, coincidentally probs around the crush went away, lol. I had reasoned before of not ultimately going for it, cos well despite her being physically attractive, there didn’t seem to be anything truly engaging about her, I’m afraid to say, but that was a thought back in my elitist days.
The truth being that I didn’t really know her, and still don’t really, but at least now I’m more open into entertaining that idea now. Anyways, before the bands came on, I tried to be witty and flirty at every opportunity – one problem I have is not being as obvious as I should be towards liking someone. When I told Koel I liked her, she was all omg!, I had no idea! etc.. I was even started to get irritated when Becca was talking with other guys, which is usually a good/bad (depending on how you read it) sign that I’m smitten. Anyways, what with the distance and the fact that only one of us is a student now, it’s probs (read: defs) not a good idea to start anything despite being quite keen to :D.

Biffy came on as described above, so I left the company of my friends for some grooving to hot choons. When that was over, we met up again, and Fran/Becca was asking if I was getting the bus back – I was so joined them outside, where we met some of the Replica X guys. I met Paul the keyboardist and we got going about how hard it is to get a computing job, I mean, this guy has a first for christ’s sake and he hasn’t found one yet. It could be that he still prefers the student life, but that’s another hot topic of discussion.

I went back to their house, and some swivel chair spinning later, we decided on watching this foreign film about nuns and some drug conspiracy, I was hoping it was gonna be something else. Anyways, I wasn’t following the plot that much, so anything that could be interpreted as innuendo, I cried out “hell yeah!”, to be joined by Snowy when he got in from his walk. By this time, Becca had dropped off, so me and Fran were throwing bits of paper over her. Time went on, and I had to make tracks for fear that Mark wouldn’t be about.

I made the short walk back to Mark’s to find that he was still up doing a little bit of revision. I got another drink, and thanks to some sneaky webiste giving out the codes required to activate Television X, we watched a bit of lesbian porn, before settling into the low budget horror film Hellraiser 4, which after seeing the original in the cov house last year, equally enjoyed this sequel with it’s cheesy lines, questionable acting and dodgy special effects. We turned in around half 4, and not before discovering that Tom’s bed (mark’s housemate) had made holes in the wall from him and his gf getting freaky, as I was witness to the last time I stayed.
“shitttt!, Hooollllly Shiiiiit!” – that was hilarious, I almost pissed myself.

Overall a good weekend, I got back Sunday evening to discover that best of top gear, the film Lost in Translation, and match of the day was on, so my night’s viewing was sorted. Thanks to my mate Andy, I got to watch Lost in Translation when it came out a few years back, and well I watched it again, mainly for Scarlett Johansson (Schwing!), and also Bill Murray, who is a legend.
Although I got annoyed as well I don’t bother with celebrity crushes that much, but I got terribly annoyed, as she is very fine, and that’s not just because her arse features in the opening credits.
I probably actually have a crush on the character she played, as she is almost not like that IRL, beign an actress, she probs has the arrogance, looking down her nose at ppl etc etc. I was wondering if I would ever to get meet to girls like the one that Scarlett played, or will I have to wait till I hit Bill Murray’s age and become a dirty man, and then it’s frowned on, lol.

Anyways, enough moaning about things that will never happen, i.e. meeting Scarlett. I am here in the library blogging away like a soldier, to use a poor similie, thinking about the crushes I’ve got going in Shrewsbury. Question: can you have more than one crush at a single time, cos I think I have like 4 right now, oh dear *shakes head*. Anyways, remembering What Koel said and how I should go for it with the Hot Librarian Chick, and then succeed in not seeing her since that conversation about a month ago, and look who is behind the desk when I walked in today. They say coincedences only happen in fiction, but I beg to differ just like Bill Bryson comes across numerous times a book. I don’t know if i blogged somewhere about it, but she actually came into TJs one day – I was so stunned, I actually did do a double take. I unfortunately froze and couldn’t do anything more than gawp at her, and she hasn’t been in since, sigh. I would approach her, but with the setting being a library, it’s impossible not to have everyone listen in. Ultimately I shouldn’t care, and I like to practice the ideal that I don’t care what strangers think, but it’s not quite true and I can’t quite live upto it completely.

Saying that, I have managed to be more selfish which I’m happy with. And I mean this in the respect, that if I have a choice to hang out with someone who smokes, I simply won’t do it, or outings where I’m left a 3rd wheel, I will now avoid as I don’t feel I should go through the awkwardness of it all.
A prime example, getting the train back with carl, he, not us, really have assembled a group of ppl that will go with us. The latest addition is this girl, woman really as she has kids and a proper job. Anyways, she is Carl’s friend, and I did not enjoy having to tell part of my lfie story to her who is effectively a stranger when I first met her. Anyways, I don’t even remember her name, and she smokes and walks back the same way as I do from the station. Now I could walk with her, have to put up with inhaling her smoke and forced to make awkward small chat, OR I could do what I do, let her go some distance ahead of me, then I walk back on my home, where I can enjoy cleaner air and my music, horray for me I think. If she’s offended, then I’m not too fussed about it, at the end of the day, she’s not my friend.

Ok, I’ve ranted more than I wanted to, but that’s ok. Off to work I go, it seems the last few days, there hasn’t been that much important work for me to do, and have the feeling of making up the numbers. Hopefully I will get to leave that place soon, here’s hoping.

Take it Easy.
J-Man.